Long-term care for the elderly. Provisions and providers in 33 European countries

The core objective of this report is to analyze long-term care for the elderly in Europe (LTC or long-term care henceforth) from the twin perspectives of female employment and gender equality. The focus is on provisioning rather than financing and expenditure, provisions in kind such as institutionalization or personal care delivered at home, monetary provisions such as care or attendance allowances, and time-related provisions such as leave offwork or the right to flexible hours. Based on the reports of the national experts of the EGGE network, a comparative analysis is conducted on 33 European countries including the 27 EU Member States, the 4 candidate countries - Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Iceland and Turkey – and 2 EFTA countries, Norway and Liechtenstein. Women are the main stakeholders in the provision of long-term care. On the demand side they account for the majority of beneficiaries: on the supply side they are still largely overrepresented among caregivers, paid or unpaid. Availability, affordability, and quality of provisions affect women, and men, in their role as potential beneficiaries. On the supply side, persisting overrepresentation of women among informal care givers compounds the extreme feminization of care workers and professionals. Whilst the pronounced feminization of long-term care work opens up employment opportunities for women in a rapidly expanding sector, it raises important concerns about gender equity in the labour market, as well as within households. The analysis conducted in this report focuses on issues concerning availability, affordability, and gender equity.